PMO wades into differential pricing debate

The Prime Minister’s Office has stepped into the raging debate on ‘differential pricing of data services’ with the treatment of Facebook’s Free Basics at the heart.Anandita Singh Mankotia | ET Bureau | Updated: January 15, 2016, 08:31 IST

The Prime Minister’s Office has stepped into the raging debate on ‘differential pricing of data services’ with the treatment of Facebook’s Free Basics at the heart, as top ministers discuss outlines of the final policy, which could be at the centre of the government’s formal net neutrality position.

Jitendra Singh, minister of state in the PMO, and Harsh Vardhan, minister of state for science & technology, are scheduled to meet communications & IT minister Ravi Shankar Prasad on Friday for the second time in a week to ensure that the final policy incorporates the PMO’s views.

“This will be the second meeting between the ministers to discuss the implications of differential pricing of data services with a special focus on Facebook’s Free Basics,” a person privy to the matter told ET.

Facebook is currently locked in a war of words with the telecom regulator over the responses made through the social network’s platform to a consultation paper on differential pricing of data services, which again triggered a huge controversy over net neutrality.

Of 24 lakh responses to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India’s consultation paper, it said 18.9 lakh were through Facebook’s platform, much lower than the network’s claim of 11 million. The regulator also said that most of the responses via the social network did not answer its specific queries and that the consultation paper was not an opinion poll.

“The PMO is watching this space very closely. ‘Digital India’ is a pet programme of the PM and any policy pertaining to Internet will be critical for the success of this ambitious programme,” sources said.

Another person said the options being discussed include the possibility of the government providing some amount of mobile Internet data free to initiate first-time users and free direct benefit transfer data packs along the lines of cooking gas subsidy.

The regulator’s consultation paper floated in December had sought feedback on whether it would be better to give a certain amount of mobile data free instead of allowing free access to just a few websites.

Free Basics is a Facebook initiative that provides mobile Internet users access to some websites free of data charges. Facebook said the service helps unconnected people to come online, but critics call it ‘a walled garden’ that violates the concept of net neutrality, which calls for equal and non-discriminatory access to the web.

Former Unique Identification Authority of India chairman Nandan Nilekani expressed support for the regulator’s proposal and suggested that the government could bear the cost of such an initiative through the funds raised from the annual levy on telecom operators.

As first reported by ET, Trai and Facebook have exchanged three letters in the past fortnight, with the regulator pointing out that Facebook’s data on number of responses sent on the matter was ‘disputable’ and didn’t address its four specific questions.

The regulator said Facebook did not reach out to people who had expressed their support for Free Basics through missed call alerts after Trai had categorically asked them to instead read its consultation paper and give a structured response to the queries raised.